Displaying items by tag: manufacturinghttps://www.fudzilla.com
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 05:31:51 +0100MYOBen-gbCook has promised Trump that he will build three big US plantshttps://www.fudzilla.com/news/44160-cook-has-promised-trump-that-he-will-build-three-big-us-plants
https://www.fudzilla.com/news/44160-cook-has-promised-trump-that-he-will-build-three-big-us-plants

If you believe Trump

Donald (Prince of Orange) Trump claims that Apple CEO Tim Cook has promised him that Apple will build three big new plants in the US.

Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that Apple is moving forward with three big USfactories.

Apple has already said that it would start a $1 billion fund to promote advanced manufacturing jobs in the United States. Apple has been trying to spin the fact that all those developers who write code for its iPhones were creating new jobs. If you believe that spin, them Apple had apparently created two million jobs in the United States.

Apple CEO Tim Cook called Trump to share that the iPhone maker would do more manufacturing domestically, Trump told the Journal.

It seems that Cook did not explain to Trump that Apple does not really make anything itself, and most of its work is done through third parties.

Of course Cook could have been talking about sending Trump some rather nice rubber plants for the Oval Office and Trump misheard him. Jobs' Mob is refusing to comment on the President’s comments.

It is unclear where the jobs are coming from. We know that Foxconn is planning a plant and Apple supplier Corning announced it would "immediately" invest $500 million and create 1,000 new jobs in the United States, but those jobs were related to medical devices and not Apple.

The failed Google Glass project has been dusted off in the form of an "Enterprise Edition" of its smart glasses hardware, which is now available to a network of Google partners.

The company's developer partners range from logistics and manufacturing to patient care. These apps have long-been involved with the product formerly known as Google Glass through the business-focused "Glass at Work" programme.

Writing in his bog, Glass project leader Jay Kothari said that GE Aviation, AGCO, DHL, Dignity Health, NSF International, Sutter Health, Boeing and Volkswagen have been using Glass over the past several years, and make up just a sampling of 50 companies using the wearable.

Google Glass was found useful in factories and other enterprise environments. Google discovered this and began work on a product built by a team dedicated to building a new version of Glass for the enterprise.

The Glass Enterprise Edition glasses are lighter and more "comfortable for long term wear". They also offer more power and longer battery life and offer support for folks with prescription lenses, Wired said. The glasses, too, are stronger and do double duty as safety glasses.

This model, which has an upgraded 8-megapixel camera, has a red light that glows when the camera is recording.

The original glass launched in 2012, but it failed to catch on with consumers. Where it did succeed is with professionals, like field workers and doctors, who use the device to record information without needing to use their hands.

"Now the Glass product team is back at X, and we'll be collaborating with the Google Cloud team and our partners to help customers across a variety of business sectors make the most of Glass. Together, we're looking forward to seeing more businesses give their workers a way to work faster and in a more focused way, hands-free."

The first 10nm SoC announced was the Snapdragon 835 and Samsung also followed on with its own Exynos 8895. They were both manufactured in 10nm LPE (Low Power Early) process and Samsung is now getting ready to launch Low Power Plus.

This is the second generation 10nm manufacturing process, and of course it will be more mature then the first one. It also features enhancements to the 3D FinFET structure reducing the leakage between the transistors. Samsung also confirmed that it was the first company to begin mass production of system-on-chips (SoCs) products on 10LPE last October. Yes, that was the Snapdragon 835.

Samsung expects a 10 percent performance gain and a 15 percent power consumption reduction which will definitely help the next generation SoCs. One can expect that the successors of Snapdragon 835 that some call Snapdragon 845 and the next generation Exynos - let’s call it the 8900 series that targets the Galaxy S9 phone - will be manufactured using this process.

Samsung is currently installing the manufacturing equipment for the 2nd generation 10nm Low Power Plus in Hwaseong, Korea and it is expected that the first chips will leave this fab before the end of Q4 2017. This is just in time for the Galaxy S9 and other Android spring refresh phones that usually get announced in Q1 and ship in early Q2 of the year.

As you can imagine this is too late for the next generation iPhone that many call the iPhone 8, as this needs to have millions of SoCs manufactured by mid-summer this year. Therefore many expect that TSMC might be the only supplier for the A11 iPhone SoC.

“With our successful 10LPE production experience, we have commenced production of the 10LPP to maintain our leadership in the advanced-node foundry market. 10LPP will be one of our key process offerings for high performance mobile, computing and network applications, and Samsung will continue to offer the most advanced logic process technology.”

Foxconn Electronics, the world’s largest contract manufacturer, has announced an ambitious effort to push ahead with a highly automated workforce by increasing investment in its robot development subsidiary in Shenzhen, China.

Earlier in January, we reported that Foxconn has begun automating its workforce over three testing phases, with a benchmark of 30 percent automation at its Chinese factories by 2020. Now, the Taiwan-based contract manufacturer has announced an increase in robot-related research and development by ¥10.39 billion ($1.51 billion). Since September 2014, more than 500 factories across Dongguan and Guangdong have invested over $630 million in robots as employees have been retrained to focus on higher “value-added elements” in the manufacturing process.

Foxconn subsidiary Robot Holding gets massive share reduction

In order to have more of its subsidiaries involved in the development of robotic products, Foxconn has also begun a stock swap program among its subsidiaries in Hong Kong and China. The company seeks to reduce the holding value of Hong Kong-based subsidiary Robot Holding to just 0.63 percent from its current 75 percent share, while affiliate companies in China will receive Robot Holding’s shares through a stock exchange process.

Industry sources say the stock swaps will help different business units within Foxconn to adopt related robotic products and applications. Foxconn’s estimate on the value of stock swaps is expected to be around ¥23.875 billion ($3.47 billion), according to company officials.

In the past, Foxconn insisted that it was only applying robotics and other innovative manufacturing technologies to replace repetitive tasks done by employees. These include small tasks such as applying glue between components, tightening screws, placing double-sided tape, or loading products onto a pallet. Sources within the company have also suggested that it expects to maintain a “significant workforce in China,” despite long-term job losses. But Foxconn isn’t alone in the automation process.

Last year, China’s Guangdong and Zhejiang provinces announced they would spend a combined $270 billion over the next five years to equip factories with industrial robots. Support will arrive in the form of subsidies for factories who want to add more robots, along with the national government’s plan to triple industrial robot production to 100,000 by 2020.

According to a new report from Taiwan’s Economic Daily Times, fruit-themed giant Apple may be ordering several million more units of its tenth-generation iPhone units than previously expected by Wall Street investors. Asian news outlets are claiming this is the highest production target the company has set since the initial shipments iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units were manufactured in 2014.

Before the end of this year, Apple has asked its upstream supply chain to manufacture between 72 and 78 million tenth-generation iPhone units by the end of the year. These devices are expected to be branded as iPhone 7 units, with the 4.7-inch model labeled “iPhone 7” and the larger 5.5-inch model labeled either iPhone 7 Plus or “iPhone Pro.”

The manufacturing order is roughly 7 to 12 million units higher than the 65 million projection that Wall Street analysts had originally estimated, raising keen interests in seeing how Apple intends to convince loyal iPhone users and first-time purchasers to stay with its platform no matter how much its sales numbers have remained stagnant over the past several quarters.

According to the company’s latest Q1 2016 earnings results, iPhone sales were essentially flat all of 2015 – the first time since the original iPhone debuted in June 2007. This gave many investors the indication that the incremental features offered in the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus were not enticing enough to garner an efficient performance-to-value upgrade path for most consumers. The company sold 74.78 million iPhone units in total during the holiday quarter between November and January, compared to a 76.5 million estimate after Forbes polled 32 Apple analysts – twenty four Wall Street professionals and eight “veteran amateurs,” it says.

Image credit: Bloomberg.com

In 2015, Apple asked its manufacturers to produce between 85 and 90 million iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus units before the end of the year. This request was for two device models that had almost no aesthetic changes over its predecessors, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. In fact, almost all of the changes were internal – a new Qualcomm LTE modem supporting double the previous modem’s data speeds, a new NFC chip for Touch ID and a new 4K (3840x2160p) rear camera sensor for sharper video recording and playback functionality.

By comparison, in 2014, Apple ordered its manufacturers to produce 70 to 80 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units by the end of the year.

The upswing in stock prices contradicts a previous Nikkei.com report that iPhone sales are expected to be bleak throughout the rest of the year, claiming TSMC’s operating profit from manufacturing Apple’s A10 SoC would remain flat due to stagnant iPhone sales. Apple has reportedly offered TSMC an exclusive contract to manufacture its custom A10 chip for tenth-generation iPhone units, with Samsung no longer a supplier.

After striking a similar, albeit a bit more lucrative, deal with Intel, maker of lithography systems ASML has landed another investment, this time from TSMC.

Under the deal TSMC will pay €276 million over the next five years. The company will also by a 5-percent stake in the company, driving the total investment up to $1.4 billion.

Headquartered in Veldhoven, Holland, ASML supplies lithography systems for the semiconductor industry. It is currently working on next generation Extreme Ultra Violet lithography technology and 450-millimeter tools.

450 millimeter wafers mean more chips per wafer and in turn more profit, while EUV lithography is widely regarded as key to further shrinking of chips. Intel has already agreed to spend up to $3.1 billion for up to 15 percent stake in ASML and fork out an extra billion for research and development, all of which is part of the plan to speed up the adoption of next gen processes by two years.

TSMC's co-chief operating officer Shang-yi Chiang said that controlling “the escalating wafer manufacturing cost” is among the biggest challenges today. Intel's chief operating officer Brian Krzanich reminded earlier that the shift in wafer size traditionally brought 30 to 40 percent reduction in die cost, and that the company expects about the same this time around.

Note that this may not be the last we hear of the company, as ASML’s call for funding involved three - TSMC, Intel and Samsung. So, two down, one to go.

]]>ProcessorsMon, 06 Aug 2012 12:21:47 +020040 nm is the right process for Tegra at the momenthttps://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/25505-40-nm-is-the-right-process-for-tegra-at-the-moment
https://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphics/25505-40-nm-is-the-right-process-for-tegra-at-the-moment

CES 2012: Tegra general manager believes

We had a chance to talk with two top guys from Nvidia - General manager of Tegra Mike Rayfield as well as General manager of Mobile group Rene Haas. We wanted to see what these guys expect from 2012 and the mobile market.

Mike Rayfield said he believes that for the first half of 2012, Tegra will rely on the 40nm process. Both chaps are aware of the birth of 28nm process probably more than any of us, but when the Kal El, Tegra 3, was in its design phase, the 28nm process was not available.

Naturally, Nvidia wants to get to 28nm and launch its next generation Wayne chip as soon as it can, but it probably won't get to that point until late 2012 or early next year. Nvidia believes that it has a good chance with Tegra 3 against Qualcomm quad core and OMAP 5, but we will get to that at some other time.

Rayfeild also confirmed more design wins with Tegra 3 than with Tegra 2.

The news is now official that the latest game from id Software known as Rage has finally headed toward replication and manufacturing, now that initial development is completed. The game that was first shown at Quakecon back in August 2007 appears to now be finally confirmed for release on October 4th (October 7th in the U.K.) by Bethesda.

The title has been delayed multiple times; although id Software never really said anything beyond that it would ship when it was finished. The game is a first person shooter with elements of driving in a number of different types of environments. The game features the latest id engine known as id Tech 5.

Early reports have been quite positive for the game despite the long development cycle. Rage could be the game that vaults id Software right back to the top. The game is being released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The iOS version of the game called Rage HD was released for that platform, as well.

Originally, a Mac version for Rage was also planned to be released, but as of right now the release of a Mac version seems to be in limbo while id Software continues to prepare for the release of the other version. As far as we are aware, id has yet to officially cancel the Mac version, but it certainly will not make the October 4th launch; it will likely be released at a later date at some point in the future.

Ivy Bridge will once again set Intel graphics standards at much higher level, but this does not mean that Intel is going to win the performance crown without a fight. Intel still competes with Nvidia and AMD with entry level GPUs that still have ability to beat Intel's on CPU graphics.

Nvidia's mobile and notebook boss, Rene Haas, has confirmed that despite the fact that Ivy Bridge gets better graphics, Nvidia is preparing something even better. He said that in current generation, Nvidia ended up some 20 to 30 percent faster than Sandy Bridge graphics, and that this trend will continue in the future.

You can expect that next generation graphics core for notebooks from Nvidia ends up at least 20 to 30 percent faster from Ivy Bridge, and in some cases much more / much less. Nvidia also reminded us that over time Intel gets quite good in optimizing its graphics for benchmarks, which is quite an interesting remark from a company that just got a saucy settlement and money from mighty Intel.

Ivy Bridge is expected to show up in March and April depending on the version while we expect to see Nvidia'a new notebook chips before then.